AI Won’t Replace Great Test Leaders with Mike Lyles

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Let'S be honest. If AI could already do 80% of your repetitive test tasks tomorrow, would your job still be safe? Hey, Joe Colantonio here. And the truth is, even though there's a lot of hype around AI, I think it is making an impact for better or worse for software testers faster than most of us realize, the repetitive tasks we all have to deal with. AI will handle them. But the testers who thrive are the ones who will double down on their leadership and influence and becoming true subject matter experts. And that's exactly what today's episode is all about. So I'm going to share with you a private session from our year Round Automation Guild training series, normally available only to guild members. Featuring the one and only Mike Lyles, Mike delivers a masterclass on how to build the skills that will keep you relevant, respected and indispensable in the air. And here's the kicker. This is just a taste of the ongoing training we do after our main event for Automation Guild. So if you're listening, get ready for Automation Guild 2026 because early bird registration will be opening soon. So if you want to stay ahead of the curve and lead in the age of AI, this is where you start. Let's jump in. Take your leadership before we get into today's episode, I got something big for you that you need to register for right now and it's BrowserStacks QA Leadership Summit, which is happening on August 13th, and the theme is Transforming the Testing Life Cycle with AI. If you're tired of testing bottlenecks and wondering how AI can actually help not just hype, then this is for you. BrowserStack CTO is going to be diving deep in how to use AI to elevate your QA strategy. Think real frameworks, real tools, and real results. You'll also hear from QA leaders From Accenture, Airbnb, Genpact, and BrowserStack on how to bring AI into your workflows responsibly, powering up your team without losing governance or trust. It's free, it's virtual, and it's packed with practical takeaways you can use right away to accelerate release, cut QA overhead, and ship better, faster. Register now using that link down below. Seats unlimited so you don't want to wait Hope to see you there.

So glad to be here. Glad to talk to every one of you today about great leadership does not guarantee great management. It's something that I've really, has really, really resonated with me through the years. And I realized that I've dealt with this and, and seen many examples of this through the years. But I felt like when Joe reached out to me and we talked about doing a presentation for you folks today, it was just really fitting for us to put this together so you're hearing it first before anybody else, I'm sure. I expect this talk to be something that I do a lot for a lot of different people and companies down the road, because I think it's something that's gonna, is really gonna grow because I think a lot of times we talk about management, but we don't talk about management becoming great leaders. But we don't talk about leaders becoming great managers. So.

As you already heard, I've been in it since 1993, and if you weren't born in 1993 or before.

You'Re lucky you're not as old as me. But I will say this. I've learned a lot through those years of working in, in IT environments, working for some really large companies, Fortune 50 companies, and, and really getting experience to work in a lot of places where I get to see some of the things that I'm going to share with you today. Also, you know, as mentioned, I've been a speaker since 2011.

Done a lot of talks in testing around QA and the QA teams that I've led for many years, but really lean toward leadership talks and doing talks around that. I've got this book, the Drive Through Is not always faster. It's 30 short stories. It's a lot of fun. I hope you get it, Hope you try it and let me know if you love it. And then lastly, this Maxwell leadership. I got connected with Maxwell Leadership with John Maxwell. And if that name doesn't resonate with you, then you should Google him and look him up. Because John Maxwell is 78. He's written over a hundred books on leadership. He's sold 40 million copies. He is the beast of leadership. If you want to know anything about leadership, that's what he specializes in. That's all he's ever specialized in. It's like that's his thing. I wanted to be a coach and speaker and trainer, and I thought, I'm going to leave it and do this forever, and I'm just going to coach people and, and talk at Events and, and train companies and individuals. And in 2021, I became a certified coach with the Maxwell Leadership Group. And I said, this is what I'm going to do. But then in 2022, I was at one of their events. I jokingly said to one of their executives, hey, if you ever need an IT guy, I'm your man. And the rest is history. I've been with that company now for three years. Some one of the best jobs in the whole world. I get to help other coaches and other people change the world with leadership values. And I just really love serving people. And that's enough about me. But I do hope we get to talk some more on that later on. But let's start with a story. And this guy's not real. In fact, he was generated by Chad GPT. I wanted to see how creative it could be. These are not real people. That's not even a real picture. It's crazy where the world's going. I checked all their fingers. I think they're all there. Although they do look strange if you zoom in. But this guy is Kevin. He's my AI guy and he's the CEO of a mid sized technology company and renowned for being a visionary leader. Every quarter his company's painted an exciting picture of the company's culture. They've expanded into markets and transforming product lines and they become an industry leader. The employees are inspired and hopefully the board is thrilled with where things are going. The press loves this guy. But.

Beneath the surface, the company's struggling because there's no formal process for translating vision into actionable plans and storyboards. The teams didn't have clear priorities and their initiatives are constantly changing. Based on the CEI's latest idea, the project managers are sidelined and and deadlines become flexible guidelines instead of commitments. Well, and what does that do? Well, the results that you see for this company is that the employee morale is suffering. Talented staff starts leaving the company because they're frustrated at moving targets that they can never seem to hit. And then products that are launched, the ones that do make it, are launched late and without good quality. And most importantly, competitors with less leadership skills but stronger management skills start taking the market share and this company goes down. So the key lesson that I hear and this, this is a made up story. Of course Kevin's not real. But the story's real because you've seen it over and over and over with several companies in the world today. Because leadership provides the why and why we do things, but management provides the missing how and how it's going to get done. And without systems, planning, accountability, and even the best vision can collapse under its own ambition. So.

We often assume that great leaders are automatically great managers, right? And if, if you Talked to me 10 years ago and said, you know, Mike, you read a lot about leadership and you know, how do you think a leader is, is doing at management? I would have probably said, well, usually management starts first, and if you're a good manager, you can become a good leader. And then I started speaking at events and talking about, you can be a leader if you're not a manager. But what I'm finding is too many times we, we have the assumption that if you're a great leader, then you're obviously a great manager as well. And that's just a mistake that we make many, many times in our organizations and the people that we work with.

There's an old quote, some of you probably live this, but it says, it is better to have loved and lost than to have never loved at all. And that works great with relationships. And it's actually really true. You know, you get to experience love, but the problem with working environments is that what if your team loves you and you love your team, but then you lose every day, right? Going to work isn't as fun as, as, as being in love. And if you and your team were motivated, but you have no goals, then life gets really tough for you in that situation as well. So, you know, are you coming to work and you're excited and you're fired up, but you don't really have a clear direction? And that, that seems to hit a lot of teams. You got, you've got senior leaders who just come in the room and they dance on the stage and they're like, we're going to do this. We're going to make a difference. And we're, we're out here doing this, and then you go back and you're like, but what are we doing right? And what's, what's our plan? How do we get to where you say we need to be? And, and I find that so many companies know how they, I mean, what they want to do it and why they want to do it. They just don't know how they're going to do it. And so that becomes a struggle. But let's talk about the differences, because I think a lot of times people blend leadership and management together into one. And I want to make sure that we don't have any misunderstandings because, man, I hear a lot of people in my company, people Use the term project management way too loosely and it's really leadership or facilitation. And so I want to make sure that we don't have any differences in definition. But when you look at these two together side by side, when I'm thinking about the core respect aspects of leadership versus management, leadership's core aspects are vision, inspiration, motivation, values. It's about kind of the, the, the positive, you know, motivational side of things. Whereas management is around planning, ensuring the execution, organizing processes, having operational efficiency and measurement and really making sure that it gets done. Leadership is going to focus on people and culture and your long term goals. Where do we want to be someday and how are we influencing other people and how are we embracing that change? And then management is really focused on the processes and systems and short terms objectives. Think of that as kind of the agile, you know, sprints and how do we deliver and deliver and deliver till we get to the long term goals. But management is more about focusing on getting those things done and then maintaining stability and optimizing resources. But then when you get to what it's about, leadership is about why and where. Where. It's why we know why we're doing this. When you're thinking on the leadership side and we know where it's going, we know where it needs to go. And then on the management side it's how are we doing it and when are we doing it. And then so that's, that's really focusing on the tactics of how and when. One of the, one of the what, why, when, where, how is it not there is what. And that is across both of them intentionally not put here. Because if you don't know what you're doing, leadership and management's not going to save you. You need what for both of those. So it's assumed that Watt is kind of on both sides of the, of the leadership and management.

Sides of the room there.

But this is John Maxwell. For those of you that didn't know him, there's his picture now you'll know him. But what I love about John is that he has a beautiful statement that says leadership is influence, nothing more, nothing less. And when we think about all the definitions of leadership, and one that you might, you know, have come to your mind if I asked you, what does leadership mean to you? There are many that fit that definition. But I love John's around influence. Because if you think about it, if you can influence people, you're leading, right? If you can influence your family, you're leading. If you can influence your Community or anywhere. If you're influencing, you are leading. And that's. That's the key thing. And John really kind of summed it up in one word. And I thought I'd try to be as cool as John and say, well, Mike Lau says management is about operational excellence. That's not a copyrighted quote or anything, but I do feel like that a leader can rally a team around a bold strategy and really come up with a plan and get people fired up. But a manager's got to ensure that strategy is implemented through good tasks, good timelines, good resources, and good implementation. So operational excellence, you'll hear that term a lot when people talk about really delivering really good things. And I think that's where management kind of plays the best part in that role.

But the question is, what happens when somebody's really all influence and no execution? Right. And you've been in those meetings, right? You've been in those companies. I've been now in five, six. I don't know how many companies I've worked for. The first one I worked at was Lowe's Home Improvement. I was there for 20 years, and so I learned a lot from that company. But I would watch great leaders in that company and other companies come to the room and say, everybody, I have a dream. I'm doing this. We're doing this. You know, it's like I'm a smart Luther King here, you know, and I've got this. I got this vision of where I want the company to go. Let's go, Everybody who's with me, hop in the car. And. But then the basic fundamentals of getting that stuff done just really failed. And then you start seeing companies start to deteriorate because they can't keep up with the vision. Guys got a great vision. He just doesn't know how to implement it, right? And. Or you got a great CEO who really knows where he wants to go, and he's bringing on people in his leadership staff that. That's taking care of those things. And that leadership staff doesn't. You know, they've got the vision, and they believe the vision of the leader and the CEO, but they don't have the tactical management skill set to really deliver. And that causes companies all over the world to have serious problems.

Even further. A Gallup study in 2014 says that only 10% of the people can naturally lead and manage effectively. That number surprises me. I would have thought it was higher, but, man, 10%. So if you're saying to me, mike, hey, I'm good. I can do both. I lead, I motivate, my team loves me, I get things done. I'm a leader in my team, but I'm also managing processes and, and really effective. You're in the top 10%, so congratulations. If you're not, we're going to talk today about whether or not you need to be or you need to find people who can be so that you can together be really successful with them.

I drew this out and put these together because you get these two here. Vision and inspiration is all about leadership. Execution and organization is about management. And I thought I'd get really cool like some of these writers, you know, they write these books and they put all the words in where all of these over cross. And I'd end up with, you know, 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 different terms here. But I will say this. If you've got vision and inspiration, you got the whole leadership thing here and you don't have the other stuff. Well, you, you've got a motivated call to action, but you don't really have any way of delivering it right. If you got these two, if you've got vision and execution, so you got one of each, you may have an unstructured drive for results. So you know, you know, you can, you know where we want to be. You know how to execute things, but you don't know how to organize it. You don't know, you don't have inspiration to do it. Or if you've got execution and organization over here, the, the, the right side and the management side, you may have.

Structured chaos, right? So you don't really know what you're doing or why you're doing it, but you can do it. You can do it really well. And I've been, I've been in companies where people are doing that right. We're just getting it done. We're just here and you're like, why are you mopping the floor? Why are you doing it? Well, it's because I feel that's what I'm supposed to do. So. And then you got inspiration and organization, the two bottom ones here. And that might be motivated procrastination because you don't really know how to execute and you, but you don't. And you don't really know why you're doing it, but you're inspired and you've got organization. So that's a bunch of mess and it's just to be funny. But the middle one, here's where we want to be. If you want to be in that 10% and that 10% in the middle is, you know, you know, the vision, you know, you know what the company is trying to do, you know what the stakeholders want to do. You're inspired. There's, there's some inspiration from leadership or you're inspiring people. There's, there's the organization, you know how to do it, and then there's execution. You know how to get it done. If you can do all four of those, you can leave this webinar right now because you're all set. But I'm sure you don't need to leave. We got, we got some more slides to go through. So let's talk about common misconceptions around leadership and management that people see every day, or at least I've seen, and I think you probably see when you hear this. I have a lot of people say, well, if I lead well, the management part will fall into place. And they think it's, you know, if I just keep pushing, I just keep doing well, things will just fall into place. I mean, who needs management if I'm just a great leader? And, you know, leading well doesn't equate to driving good management. No more than eating healthy and not exercising is going to make you very healthy. Or the opposite. Exercising a lot, not eating well. Like, you know, if I'm exercising a lot but still eating the same junk, I'm not going to get very healthy. You got to combine them and do the both. So you got to follow the fundamentals of management to combine that with leadership to get really good. If you want to be on both sides of the, of the room there.

Another one is management is boring. Leaders need to, don't need to focus on that. I've got leaders. I've worked with so many. I've worked, I work with them all the time. I won't say I work with them right now, but I do. People all over the world are just saying, yeah, I just, I love leading, I love having a vision, I love inspiring my teams. But, man, don't tell me that I need to explain how to do it or I need to talk about the details. Just tell me when it's done. Well, if you love leading, inspiring and motivating and galvanizing your team, that's great. And I know this could become boring if you have to think about how it's going to get done. But if you want your teams to grow and become successful and carry your vision, you've got to learn how to manage and drive that or again, find somebody who can do that on your team that's going to complement your work. If you've got that ability to do that, if it's just you and there's nobody else there, you have to figure out both. Both sides. Now, somebody may say, I'm not a macromanager. I hear that a lot. And people take pride in that statement, right? I empower my people. I'm not a micromanager. And that's great. That's a really good thing not to do because, I mean, there's a good chance that many of us are micromanaging more than we should. And we do it out of love and support, I'm sure, for our team. But just like our children, sometimes we've got to let them learn some things with experience, right? And we just got to kind of let them learn on their own and we deleg things to them. But with that said, you can empower people, but you've got to know when you need to manage and lead them and give them that guidance, because.

We don't need to use that term. I'm not a micromanager as an excuse to not understanding the management processes required to deliver your products or services for the organization. So don't. Don't use that as a crutch or an excuse. Uh, if you're not a micromanager and your people do feel empowered and you are helping them manage things, then good for you. You're doing a great job.

Now, a lot of times I'll have people say, well, I'm a good leader and a good manager. I'm good at both. My people love me and I'm getting stuff done. I'm doing it by the book. I'm very compliant. I'm a very compliance type person. I'm getting it done. And maybe you are, but my question is, how are you managing that? And so it takes me to my. To American Idol, one of my favorite shows years ago. I don't watch it much anymore. But I remember the. The tryouts was always my favorites. The auditions, especially with people who are tone deaf, right? And you get these people up there and they're like, hey, I'm going to sing. And I've been doing this for 20 years. I'm so great. And they get up there and they start singing, and you're like, oh, my gosh, this is going to be in the. This is going to be in the comedy reel for the rest of the show. There are people who truly think they're good at management and they're not. And you have to help those people and if you're one of those people, the way you can help yourself is to ask for feedback. You know, hey, team, how am I doing? Do you think I'm managing this well? Do you think I'm doing it well? And then really get their feedback because sometimes you can't hear that you're tone deaf in management. So hopefully that advice sits in and really sinks in for you. Now I want to share some real world stories, and this is where it gets fun. The first one is my most fun one, but the real world story is this. If you live in the United States and you watch National Football League, you probably know who the Pittsburgh Steelers are. They're my favorite team. They have been since I was born. I mean, I've always been a Steelers fan, even though I'm from North Carolina. We didn't have a football team back when I was young. I became a Steelers fan and I never changed when they finally got a football team and that team in Carolina doesn't really play well, have it in a long time. But Mike Tomlin is the coach of the Pittsburgh Steelers. He's been their coach for. I don't know, I. It's been a long, long time. Almost 20 years maybe or so. And I've been a Steelers fan all my life. I watched them have amazing years. They're tied with the most Super Bowls one of any team in football. They won six Super Bowls. I'm dying to see them win a seventh one.

But I've not seen them win A championship in 16 years. 2009 was the last time they did and Mike Tomlin was there when they won that last one. So it's the same coach that seems to be consistent. Players come and go. The team loves this guy. Many fans love him. Some of them don't. The team, the league respects him as a coach. And he's got great quotes, man. He's got such great quotable quotes. He's so inspiring. He loves on his team. You can see this team just rallying around him in these pictures and listening to him and standing in attention. They feel his compassion.

But they go to the playoffs, they play week one and they lose the first game every single year for the last 16 years. So even sometimes they don't even make it to the playoffs. And so what I have a problem with is the script is the same every time. We know what they're going to do. People complain and joke that, hey, the Steelers are going to make it, they're going to have a winning season, they're going to do great he said, 14 winning seasons in a row, but when they get to that first playoff game, they lose. And that's not good for us. Right? He's got a great, you know, everybody that watches him knows what's going to happen. I can. I can tell you from watching the tv, there's the play they're going to play. They're going to do this second play, they're going to do this third play. He's doing the same stuff that we know is not making them successful. They tried changing key players. No changes. They've tried playing, changing the assistant coaches. No changes. They've tried changing the back office leadership. No changes. The core constant is this coach, and he needs to realize his management gaps. Now, I will say this, and maybe eight or nine months from now, you'll be like, mike, hey, you remember when you had this presentation, the Steelers finally won a Super Bowl? Because I think this is the year he's starting to take it serious. And they're making changes that Steelers don't usually make, and they're starting to bring on players they don't usually pay for, and they're keeping players they usually don't hold on to. And they've got new strategies. They. Maybe this guy has woken up and maybe the team is going to do things differently. But if he goes the same route, does the same way, and doesn't realize he's got a management gap that he needs to fill either with one of his assistant coaches or he needs to leave and let somebody else do it, they're going to continue to be the team that makes it to the first round and loses the playoffs. So hopefully that sinks in. If you're not a sports fan, you're like, I hate football. I don't know what you're talking about. I hope at least the idea hit you. If you are a sports fan and you know this team, you definitely know what it is. And if you're in our division, you definitely hate this coach. So if you're from Cleveland, Cincinnati or Baltimore, you're like, I hate that man. All right, So a positive example is Martin Luther King, who, Who learned how to use the process of leadership and management and fill in those gaps. Because Martin Luther King is one of the most inspirational people you'll ever hear in history. Is like, he changed the world with what he did. He had memorable experiences. He had a memorable quote in a speech. He had a I have a dream speech. He had thousands of people that would come and stand, you know, for him. And. And I've heard people Talk about. Martin Luther King talked about I have a dream, that I have a plan, right? Because he relied on others to manage the logistics like organizing those marches and the fundraising and the crowds and the events. He just showed up and led them. He was a great leader. I will never discredit what he did because he was awesome and what, what one of his strongest strengths was. He found a way to bring in the people that could get the job done for the management task, for what he had to do as a leader. Another one is a very specific example would be Steve Jobs, right? He was amazing. I mean, where will we be today? I'm talking on a Mac, I'm looking at my phone, I got, I got two iPads, phones all over the house, Apple TVs. I mean, my whole life is different because of Steve Jobs, right? But he was a visionary leader, leader who revolutionized Apple's direction, but he was known for being less effective at managing teams. He wasn't the guy you wanted in the room because he would just curse people out and scream at them and, and not really lead them in a good management way. He was inspirational in how he come up with these ideas. But it was Tim Cook, who's now the CEO, that really put the operational management in place to execute that vision. So you gotta have the right people in the room.

Another example would be my story. So, as I mentioned, I started my career in 1993 and I was a developer for seven years. In 2000, the company I was working with decided to create a PMO program management office. They wanted to try this out. I raised my hand and said, hey, let's go try that. I'd love to see what this experience would be like. And I worked there for just a couple years and went back into the IT side of things. But I met an amazing leader there in that position that was extremely visionary. He was always 6 to 12 months or more ahead of where we wanted to be with the company. He knew, here's where we want to be next year at this time, here's where we want to be in two years. He had that vision, but he was terrible at execution. He couldn't execute, he couldn't deliver. If you give him the task of, of doing, of coming up with a vision and also delivering it, he would fail. So they paired me up with him and we developed a successful partnership because I worked with him to whiteboard his ideas, his visions, his goals. I managed the things for him. I, I took those and put them together into a plan. I come back to him I said, is this good? He was so easily able to digest and, and handle those updates on our roadmap and he could really help with those. Any obstacles that we had and decided, making decisions on the pivots that we had to make. But he was not a planner and he could not have done what he did without me. And I'm not saying I was his savior. I couldn't have done what I did at that time in my career without him. So we played off of each other. But that's somebody saying, hey, I can be a great leader if I have a great manager to drive things for me. So that may be something you have to, to do. Let's talk about the imbalance. So when I'm looking at the leadership, management imbalance, the things that I look at are, you can have, if you've got more leadership than you have management and you've got really strong leadership in place, but there's a lack of management at the leadership level within you or the organization or your leader, you're going to see vision with no plan. So we're going to have great ideas, we just don't know how to get them into place. Right. And people just talk about it. It's like, let's just do it, you know, let's do it. And they're like, I don't know how you have inspiration. Everybody's going to be fired up. We're excited, we want it, we want to see the future, but we have no accountability. And with no accountability, you have people that are just not delivering because they're like, that's not me. That's not my job. That's your job. That's your job. You have high morale. People love each other, they love the boss, they love what they're doing. But then you get poor results. And if you have poor results, that will eventually end up with less money coming into the company and then less people spending time together at the company. Long term, you might have innovation, but no sustainability. So, you know, when I think about this, and I'll touch on it again, and I'm sure I'll repeat the same statement, but any of you that have been alive nearly as long as me, you remember, remember Blockbuster and, and other companies that just couldn't sustain? They had ideas, they wanted to do great things, they had opportunities. Netflix even offered them an opportunity, but they just didn't take it. So you got a great vision of where you think you want to be, but in their case, they didn't have the vision and they had good management. They were running blockbusters all over the world. They just didn't have the vision. So that's the opposite side.

So what I would say to you is how do you recognize imbalance and what do you do when you see that? The first one is that you're going to see vision over details. And some of you may say, I've been in that situation and I'm no longer there anymore. I moved to another job. Congratulations. Because you might see leaders who, who think about the big picture and they talk about, oh man, this is great, I want to do this, I want to, I'm going to make the world a different place by doing these things. But they overlook the day to day operations such as budgeting, which is critical, scheduling critical, and process optimization, which are really required to do good management. And, and when you see that, you see a lot of people who will, who have these great, great, awesome ideas and then the company goes down before they can implement those great ideas. And you're like, that would have been a great thing to implement. They just couldn't manage the back office to make sure that that went live. The people versus processes is one where when I started doing research for this and pulling together my notes, I had an epiphany. And I hope you see this and you feel this as well, because one of the things I see with people and processes is that leaders excel in motivation, but they lack skills and management workflows, tracking performance metrics or enforcing accountabilities. They may have strong team morale, but they struggle with performance review and underperformers. That's what hit me the most. And if you think about this, this is huge. And I bet you've seen this, you've been working for someone that has this problem. You're given 100%, you're going to work every day on time, you're leaving late, you're given everything you've got and you got a co worker that's just not doing well. And you look at your boss and you're like, why am I working myself to death and this person's not doing their job? Why is this person getting any praise from you or any respect from you when I'm the one doing the work and this person's not? If you've not had that situation, I'm so proud of you and I hope you don't have that. But I've had it more times than I've not. But I used to think that it was favoritism and that the boss was given favoritism. But when you think about this leadership and management gap, it could be that the boss doesn't understand how to gauge whether or not that person's performing or not performing. And so it helps me to go back in time and think about the bosses that I really felt angry and upset with. And I was like, why did you favorite, you know, show favoritism to this person and give them respect when they didn't deserve it? And now I'm starting to realize maybe that person was such a great leader, but they just weren't good at the management practice of understanding that. Those folks just, they didn't understand what good and not good performance was. And so they weren't able to recognize it and to do it. Now, I'm sure some of the people did show favoritism. I'm not saying that they don't, but I think it's good to recognize that. And if you do that, what I would suggest for you, if you're in a situation in your workplace where that's happening to you, is you help that person, that peer that you're saying is not carrying their weight and you help that boss understand how I can help them and where you see the gaps without sounding like a tattletale that's trying to say, hey, they're not doing their job, I want to help. You had to just, you know, fill in and give them some support. Number three is risk taking versus stability. So you look at leaders who embrace risk and innovation and they're really willing to go all out and go for everything. But it requires stability and repeatability. But they feel restrictive to visionary leaders. This hits home with developers and testers every time I've talked about this, even outside of this presentation with people. When you work with visionaries in the senior positions, you know, these people are like, hey, I don't care about the process. I just need to make this happen by August, I need to make this happen by December. Please get this done and make it happen. And you're like, oh my gosh, do you understand this is a three year project? Right. And so you have to help these visionary leaders break this down into small chunks so that you understand if you're in management or you're in a position where you're working with these folks, you've got to help them understand the concept of time and really how that we, you know, can the, the risk to quality as well as releasing that full product with or without the benefits that you need. Okay.

I'm just making sure there's nothing chat I need to look at Right now, if you do, just ping me.

Okay? Now this is. This is my fun slide. I always try to have one fun slide. This is my fun one. Leadership is fun. Leadership is known when to laugh at yourself. Management is serious. Management is knowing when to cry. And fix it. Now that's joking. I don't want anybody to cry because you're a manager, but you probably wanted to, no matter how strong you are. But I do think I do enjoy leadership probably more than I enjoy management, because I always feel there is a motivational team bonding kind of thing. And I feel like I can inspire people and I can. I can make people do crazy things even if they don't want to. And then management is just. I just got to roll up my sleeves and get in there and make it, you know, make it happen. So. So I wanted to share you that just for fun, but. But I do think it's not necessary. You know, some of you may say, I love management, and that's what I love. In fact, I hate the leadership side. And that's okay. You're complimenting somebody at your company more than likely to help them grow as well.

So why does it matter? So the thing I want to talk about really quick here is why does it matter to have this distinction between these two? And that is because organizations need both visionary and effective management to survive. If you've got a great leader who has strong management skills, I mean, a great leader who doesn't have strong management skills, then that could be disorganized execution. You may not really end up with the final result that you expected or wanted. If you've got great management without leadership, then you might be cutting out on innovation and you don't have the right things being delivered that you want. And that's where I go back to Circuit City and Blockbuster. They seem to have good management. They were. They were rocking and rolling until they weren't, and then suddenly they didn't have that vision of the future to be able to think wise. And I'm sure everybody that ran Blockbuster really wished that they had listened to Netflix when they wanted to buy them out and be part of this with them.

They fell behind. These. These guys that. That did that fell behind, and their competitors closed the doors for them.

And then there's the old quote which really hits home here in this presentation, is people don't leave bad jobs, they leave bad managers. Right. Now, I know the story there is. It's all about management and leadership when you think of this quote. But most people are very strong. They can handle the pressures of work and task. People are really, really strong. They're stronger than you think they are, especially if they see the vision and the inspiration. But if they work for a poor manager, somebody who's just not helping them get things done, they usually don't last very long. Because if they feel like they're working hard and we're like, I don't know why we're doing this and I don't see the end result, then people will start looking for other things to do with their career and their life.

So I'm going to give you five things really quick. We're at 145, so I'm going to rock it here. Five things to strengthen your man management skills.

Number one, plan ruthlessly. Right? Be good at learning how to prioritize, scope, plan and setting expectations. And like I said many times, and I didn't start this presentation thinking about telling people, find somebody to help you. I started this presentation months ago thinking about, I'm going to tell you how to fix yourself. And then I realized with all of my research, sometimes people just can't do it. And if you're one of those people who says, mike, I'm a great leader, I have no idea how to manage, then find somebody who can. And make sure you either pair up with them as a peer or you bring in somebody to work with you or make somebody on your team who you see has those management skills. Help you plan ruthlessly. Because you need a map to meet your destinations. If you drive around without a map or a gps, you're in trouble. Number two is measurement. I've done a talk, we talked about all the talks that I've done over the 14, 15 years. I had one. It was one of my favorites. It was called metrics. Tell a story, not a number. And what I used to say is, we got all these numbers, especially in testing where 80% pass and fail, doesn't tell me anything about the quality of the product. It just tells me I've done four fifths of the work. It doesn't tell me whether or not the other 20% is big problems or little problems. And so you have to understand how to read the results of the metrics. But if you take that data, you can drive progress, successes, roadblocks, issues, resolutions. Data is king. And if you do it the right way and you start using data, even if you struggle at management, you will start being someone that people sees that knows how to manage things. If you can manage data delegation, we talked a little bit about that. Don't over delegate. But you have to delegate with clarity. And what I would say to you is learn what you can and what you can't delegate. I've always heard the statement you can't delegate. You can delegate everything except accountability. You are the one accountable. Don't get yourself in a situation where we're playing hot potato if you don't know what that phrase is. Let me introduce you to it. I in my company I got John who says I don't want this, I'm going to give it to Mike. Then Mike says, I don't want this, I'm going to give it to Tim. Tim gives us the sherry, Sherry gives it to Susan, then it gets back to John. We're throwing that thing around like it's a potato and we're not holding on to it. That's not delegation, that's just poor management. Don't become part of the delegation, hot potatoes mess. Delegate to people that can own it. And if you're working with people on your team and you're delegating to your team, make sure that person is going to be able to do it for you and with you. Number four is follow through. Let's do what you said you would do. That's what dynamic D W y S y W D is. And this is critical. We've all made lists. You probably make shopping lists. You probably have to do list on your computer right now or on your phone. But the one thing we don't do very well is put a date with it. And that's where do what you said you would do is very critical. I have this in my book as one of the chapters. But if you don't put a date with it, it's just a dream, it's just a. It's just a wish. It's something I'd like to do. And I find that if I don't have a date beside of the task that I put, I don't always meet those dates. I don't always get it done. The other thing is I always write down any commitment I make to somebody the moment I make it. I don't care if it's family, friends, work or outside. Inside the moment I make a commitment, I write down what I committed to, who I committed it to and what time I committed to get it done. You will find this will change your life and you will become somebody who can manage things, especially if you deliver it on time. And the last one here is this feedback. Ask peers and bosses and subordinates for feedback, but tell them to be honest. Because too many times we talk to people and we say, hey, I want to hear your feedback on me. And they're like, yeah, you're doing fine. And they're like, he's an idiot. He is not good at what he does. Mike stinks at being a manager. And I can't say it to him because he's my boss. Well, tell your people that you won't reprimand them, that you want to hear their honesty and that you respect their honesty. And then you'll start getting some good feedback. Be prepared for it because a lot of times when I open that door, stuff comes through that door that I didn't want to see. But it's okay because that'll help you document the feedback and start setting goals for yourself to get better. Because my closing thought here is best leaders don't stop at vision. Great leadership has got a good vision, but they build systems to bring it to life. And if you're a good manager and you put together a good plan, whether it's yourself doing it or people on your team that you work with to do it, you can make a difference in your organization. So my final slide is this. This is John Maxwell again. I love his quote. It's out of his book called the 15 Laws of Invaluable Laws of Growth. It's one of my favorite books of his and it says you can not change your life until you change something you do every day. It says it all. If you want to. If you want to. But what are you going to do today and every day in the future to grow? Because you got to do something different every day. I believe in you and I know you can do this. If you have questions, if you have any inputs, feedback, I'd love your feedback. I'd love to hear from you. I'd love to work with any of you. Like I said on those Maxwell books, you can buy as many of them you want and I won't get a penny for it. But I definitely would suggest that you buy them if you, if you ever see any of those great books by John, but. And by my book, I do actually want you to do that. But I'll leave it back to you guys to see if there's any questions or anything I could answer.

Thanks again for your automation awesomeness. The links, everything of value we covered in this episode, head on over to testguild.com a556 and if the show has helped you in any way, why not rate it and review it in itunes? Reviews really help in the rankings of the show and I read each and every one of them. So that's it for this episode of the Test Guild Automation Podcast. I'm Joe. My mission is to help you succeed with creating end to end full stack automation awesomeness. As always, test everything and keep the good. Cheers. Hey, thank you for tuning in. It's incredible to connect with close to 400,000 followers across all our platforms and over 40,000 email subscribers who are at the forefront of the automation testing and DevOps. If you haven't yet, join our vibrant community@testguild.com where you become part of our elite circle driving innovation in software testing and automation. And if you're a tool provider or have a service looking to empower our guild with solutions that elevate skills and tackle real world challenges, we're excited to collaborate. Visit testguild.info to explore how we can create transformative experiences together. Let's push the boundaries of what we can achieve.

With lutes and lyres, the bards began their song A tune of knowledge, a melody of code through the air it spread like wildfire through the land Guiding tester showing the secrets to behold.